


Time Heals

by clandestine_meetings



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Healing, Remus Lupin Needs a Hug, Suicide Attempt, The Doctor (Doctor Who) Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29094000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clandestine_meetings/pseuds/clandestine_meetings
Summary: In which Remus Lupin spends the time after his friends' deaths with a certain time traveller, who is suffering from his own loss.
Relationships: Remus Lupin & Jack Harkness, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin (past), Tenth Doctor & Remus Lupin, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler (Past)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 21





	1. THE MAN ON THE BRIDGE

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know how many people will read this, seeing as it’s a pretty niche thing, the Dr Who/Marauders crossovers. Never mind. I hope someone enjoys this. I certainly did. :)
> 
> Thanks to 7701DeathlyHalfBloodPrincess and Mira Black-Snape (on fanfiction. net) for taking a look through and checking everything for me!

As usual, the TARDIS took him exactly where he needed to be.

Late twentieth century, by the taste of the air. Seventies or eighties, by the buildings. Britain, by the red telephone boxes, and London by the river and the skyline. November, perhaps, just after Hallowe’en, if he was correct in guessing those orange smudges on doorsteps and balconies were rotting pumpkins. 

The Doctor turned his eyes to the river. In the early-morning light, the man on the bridge was a stark silhouette against the brightening sky. His patched clothes flapped in the wind, but other than that the figure was stationary, staring out over the water. The Doctor could only see his back, but the man was thin and frail and his shoulders hunched as if they had the weight of the galaxies bearing down on them.

His feet, the Doctor noticed, were halfway off the edge.

“Oi!” he yelled, breaking into a jog towards the bridge. The man didn’t seem to hear. “Hey!”

The Doctor sped up, running down the path beside the river where he had parked, sprinting up the steps two at a time to reach the curve of the bridge. From this angle, he could see that the man was leaning forward ever so slightly.

He halted right behind the teetering man.

“Hello,” the Doctor said, breathing heavily after his sprint. “Why don’t you come down from there?” His tone was one he might use to soothe a child.

For the first time, the man reacted, turning his head ever so slightly towards the Doctor. “Why should I?” His throat was raw, his eyes running, his voice reduced to a whisper. “Why should I live?”

The Doctor struggled for words. “Because you are amazing and … there is so much in front of you. I mean, how old are you?”

A pause. The Doctor took the opportunity to look at the man’s clothes, and he frowned—not the usual garb a twentieth-century human might wear. “Twenty-one,” the man answered.

“Exactly! You have so much to live for. What will your friends think? Your family? They’ll miss you, mate! I guarantee your life is important to them.”

His voice was hollow. “I have no friends left, and no family who want me. I am alone.” The man turned completely and the Doctor saw for the first time the set of parallel scars cutting across his face. Golden eyes stared from beneath a film of tears. “Believe me when I say there is nothing left to live for.”

The Doctor tried another tactic, letting his voice harden a little. “How about this, then: why are you hesitating?”

Golden eyes turned to peer across the water. “I don’t know.”

“Exactly. There must be something.”

Silence. The city had not yet woken up.

“There must be something that’s stopped you jumping already. Come with me,” the Doctor urged gently. “I will show you something wonderful, far away from here, and if you still have nothing to live for I will take you back here. Just … let me try, all right? Let me take you somewhere.”

The man swallowed, then let himself step backwards. He climbed off the railing and stood beside the Doctor. “All right.” He wiped a hand across his face to stop the last stray tears. “All right. Somewhere far, far away.”

.

The man barely blinked at the inside of the TARDIS. 

“Nice place,” he said.

.

The Doctor took the man to a bustling market in Adamantine, a quaint place in the Minerva System where a hundred species haggled for goods and rubbish, and mingled, loved and hated. He’d always loved the abundance of _feeling_ here—there was no shortness of emotion and life, and interesting people seemed to crop up in every corner.

“What do you think?” the Doctor asked, kicking his feet in the dust with exuberance. The suns burned overhead and a cart kicked sand into the air. 

“Unrealistic,” the man replied.

The Doctor laughed. The man didn’t.

They walked on, through stalls of fruit in colours that humans didn’t realise even existed, the air thick with hovering smells from the far reaches of the universe. The Doctor eyed the other man as he examined the stalls, the people, the curiosities all around; he seemed more youthful here, and although most humans seemed young to the Doctor, he was particularly proud to have brightened the eyes of this particularly gloomy man. 

“What’s your name?” the Doctor asked, swinging around one of the stalls and a corner to a quieter street. 

“Remus,” the man said. “You?’

“I’m the Doctor.”

A raised eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“Yes.” They dodged a creature whose back was straining under a pile of carpets five metres tall.

“Rather conceited, don’t you think?” Remus said. “The Doctor, as if you’re the only one. There are lots of doctors out there, you know.”

He laughed and pulled out the well-worn phrases from his younger days. “Well, I’m the original, you could say.”

Remus laughed. 

“Says you,” the Doctor shot back. “Your name’s not exactly normal. What kind of a name is Remus for a human, anyway? I don’t know much of Earth mythology, but wasn’t he killed by his own brother?”

Remus laughed bitterly. “My parents never had much hope for me, I’m afraid. Better than naming me after the murderer, I suppose.”

“Fair enough,” and then (because he couldn’t resist), “It’s not true, of course.”

Remus raised an eyebrow in query.

“The story! Rem and Rom. Mates of mine, actually. There wasn’t a massive wolf, or whatever it’s meant to be—it was an alien. Beautiful creature, that.”

To Remus’s credit, he didn’t look as surprised or confused as the Doctor would’ve expected. “You were there?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’ve travelled a bit, you know.” He gave Remus a cocky smirk and received a smile in return.

A moment later, Remus leant over to the nearest stall and picked up a funny-shaped pink fruit which looked rather like a mangled pear. “Any idea what this is?”

“Nope. Try it.”

“You’ve got money?”

“Something like that.” As he spoke, the Doctor tossed a small bag towards the vendor, who opened it and grinned. Her mouth being situated above her eyes, the sight had a rather strange quality to it, and Remus looked a little queasy just watching the expression grow on her face.

“That’ll do,” said the Doctor. 

Remus bit into the fruit curiously. “Bitter, in a nice way. Bit fishy. Crunchy like an apple,” he noted. “‘S nice, really. You wouldn’t expect it.”

The Doctor grinned. _This_ was what he’d brought Remus here for. The scarred man’s tone was already lighter, his eyes shining with something other than tears, a slight spring in his step.

They walked on. “Have you ever killed someone, Doctor?”

The Doctor turned towards Remus, who couldn’t quite meet his eye. “Why do you ask?”

“Your eyes don’t fit your face.”

He contemplated his response for a moment. “Neither do yours.”

“I know.” And it was that—an admission—that scared the Doctor the most.

They walked through the market for a little longer, but this time they were swamped in silence and unasked questions. “What do you think of it all?” the Doctor asked, gesturing around himself.

He watched as Remus looked to the sky, at the twin suns, then around him, at the bustling mass of people swarming through the little streets. “It’s unrealistic.”

“You’ve said that.” The Doctor sighed. “It’s all real, you know.”

“But it feels like it can’t last. This … this isn’t forever. All these different species can’t live side by side.” His eyes darkened. He turned towards the Doctor with a grim face. “Happiness never lasts—you know that.”

“Let me take you somewhere that’s forever, then. Or least a very, very long time.”

.

The Doctor took him to exactly nowhere and threw the doors wide. Beyond the safety of the TARDIS, stars glittered in every direction, like shattered glass against a swathe of black. The tail end of a galaxy blushed coral pink, painted against the darkness and the stars and the great big nothingness which The Doctor had always found himself enslaved to.

“Space,” he said gently, staring out with reverence. 

Remus stared. “Oblivion,” he replied.

“But isn’t it beautiful?”

The scarred man stepped towards the edge, as he had done on the bridge, and leant over, looking down and then up into the void. “This isn’t forever. Even the stars die eventually.”

The Doctor frowned. “Nothing’s forever.”

“I know. Who did you kill?”

He flinched. _Everyone._ “I don’t like to talk about it.” But it was as if Remus could see through his walls, through the protective shell of his ribs to his hearts, barely beating, blackened by grief.

“I killed a kid,” Remus whispered. He didn’t speak to the Doctor but to the space spread in front of him. “I didn’t know, at the time, but after I’d done it, I took off his mask. He was barely out of school. Hadn’t started shaving.” His voice was hoarse, his eyes dark as he recalled the memory. The Doctor didn’t know who this man was, or how he could’ve done such a thing, but he could feel the pain radiating from him.

“I’ve killed children,” he said in response. Not as a boast; as a sign of understanding.

“How many?”

“Two and a half billion.” The words were bitter in his mouth, as they always were when he talked about Gallifrey, and what was lost. 

The admission hung in the air for a moment. The Doctor could barely meet the other man’s eyes. 

“Merlin,” Remus breathed.


	2. Adventures

From there, it wasn't quite so cold between them. As if the wave of tension had broken upon reaching the shore, their conversations flowed naturally.

"Where next?"

Remus grinned. (It suited him.) "I dunno." He laughed. "...Somewhere purple."

"Purple?" the Doctor asked, incredulous.

But he remembered plenty of planets in varying shades of lilac and fuchsia. He wracked his brain for something Remus might enjoy—because, he realised, he _wanted_ Remus to enjoy himself, he really did—and grinned as he remembered a good one.

"I've never been," The Doctor said, "But a friend of mine advised it—well, not really, but that doesn't matter. She told me it was a little cold, so open the wardrobe over there, will you? I think there are some decent coats somewhere in there." He looked towards Remus, who was peering into the cupboard doubtfully. "Right to the back! I once spent a year in a closet in Artesia. Terrible experience, but I got some inspiration for the decor."

Flicking switches and pressing the Y button on the keyboard, The Doctor felt like he was back to himself again: a jumble of too many thoughts and not enough time to process them all. He hadn't felt so comfortable in his own skin since he'd left Rose … how long ago was that in the funny sort of time he kept while travelling? Months? A year, even? He'd been travelling alone for a while until Remus had come along. He turned to smile at the other man, who was picking coats off the floor, looking at each of them with confusion.

"These are … odd," Remus said. "What time are these from?"

"All sorts, I think. But that grey one you've got there's definitely 90's. 3090's, I mean, not … what year are you from again?"

His voice was terse. "You picked me up in 1981. Beginning of November."

"Ah! Princess Diana, the DeLorean, and the first-ever London Marathon. Oh, and that Headingley test—brilliant stuff, that. Great year. But you missed the tornadoes, I think. Lucky! They were —will be , for you—record-breaking, you know, devastating, but nothing compared to the time storms on Gallifrey, of course." He paused, frowning at Remus. "Are you all right?"

Remus was staring at him, his hands clenched in fists. He had a look of horror or anger or disgust on his face (perhaps all three). "No," he said at long last, his voice quiet. "No, I don't think I am."

The Doctor remembered a silhouette teetering on the railing of a bridge, and waited for him to explain.

"It's like … you're treating it as if it's a series of facts, you know? And that … that was my _life._ That was the last year of my life—and the worst year of my life, too. Of course, I was far too busy to care about a royal wedding. And who cares about a bloody car? And I've never heard of the London Marathon, though I guess I don't know much about Mug—" He cut himself off. "About normal life."

The Doctor looked at him in concern. "And what were you doing? This past year?"

A pause. "Fighting a war," Remus said so softly that The Doctor almost missed it.

"I didn't know there was—"

"I'm not supposed to say. Maybe another time."

"All right." He took a breath, forcing that smile back onto his face. "Grab a coat then, Remus! Welcome to Omphalos Prime."

They stepped outside and onto the lilac-tinged ground of Omphalos Prime. Remus had chosen a bomber jacket, true to his seventies roots, and The Doctor had looked at the coats for a good few moments before making a disgusted face and donning his usual thin brown overcoat, cold be damned.

It wasn't even that cold. The sun was reasonably far away, but the lack of cloud cover (seeing as there was no water on Omphalos Prime) meant that at times like this, in the middle of the fifty-seven-hour day, it was similar to a brisk autumn evening on Earth. When night fell, however, The Doctor knew that wouldn't be the case.

"We have about ten hours until it gets really cold, I'd guess," he said, spinning in a lazy circle to take everything in.

It was flat here, but the ground was hard rock with a violet tinge. A rough layer of fungal growth had spread across the entire plain and a few stray weeds crawled out of the cracks in the rocks. Both of these lifeforms, of course, were purple.

"Brilliant," The Doctor muttered with a laugh. "It really is all purple."

"Apart from this," he heard Remus's voice from behind him mutter.

He turned to see Remus crouching some ways away, and when he stepped over to take a look, he saw the slab of pale blue rock sitting amongst the purple. "Fascinating," he said, pulling his glasses out of his pocket and putting them on. He got onto his knees and licked the rock.

Remus made a face. "That could be poisonous."

"Yes. It could. But it isn't." He leapt to his feet and pulled his sonic screwdriver out, waving it around vaguely to scan for life-forms on the planet.

"What? What is it?"

"I forgot the year. 2856, I think. This is not yet part of the Earth Empire."

"Earth Empire? You mean, we actually get out here? Properly, I mean. Not just the moon, and all that."

"Yeah. It's brilliant, isn't it?" He found himself giving Remus that grin that Rose had always loved. _'That stupid grin of yours,'_ she'd always said to him. _'Like you're drunk on adventure.'_ The Doctor felt his face fall, and he quickly turned around to hide the sudden flare of pain in his chest. "But yeah," he said, still hiding his face and trying to keep his voice light. "That's why it's so empty. Hasn't been populated yet."

"Cor. When I tell—" Remus trailed off.

Seemed like they were both biting their tongues out here.

.

"All right. Where next then?"

Omphalos Prime, for all its purpleness, got boring rather quickly. The Doctor had that remarkable blue stone stuffed into the pocket of his coat for another time.

"I don't know. What're the options?" Remus slung himself into the battered yellow seat.

He thought for a moment. "I do love the first French Revolution back on Earth," he suggested.

"Nah, I'm sick of Earth. Just … stay out of that whole blasted solar system. I want to see the stars."

The Doctor turned around, giving Remus a concerned glance. "Not even Mars?"

A tightening of the other man's lips. "Please, Doctor. Don't even go _near_ Earth."

There was something in Remus's eyes. Something in the harsh angles of his cheeks. Something in the depth of his scars and the tension of his shoulders. Remus Lupin still had secrets, and they were all waiting for him at home.

"Memories, eh?" The Doctor asked softly.

Remus stared at him for a moment. "Yeah. They … as soon as we land on Earth I feel as though they'll circle the TARDIS like hungry wolves, waiting for me to step out, and then—" He clenched his fists. "We can't go to Earth."

"I have stuff to do back on Earth, you know. Official duties. Etcetera."

"This … this is a time machine. When I'm dead, or something, you can just travel back in time to do that."

"Look, Remus, there are fixed points in time. Things I can't change if they happen without me. It's hard to explain." He drew his eyebrows together in a frown. "And you're not going to die anytime soon. You're stuck with me."

Later, after a holiday at a planet resort and a few hours of exploration in an underground forest, he found Remus sitting on a step on one of the lower levels of the TARDIS.

"Remus?" he asked, almost afraid to do so; the man looked on the brink.

"Could I bring them back?" came the slightly wounded voice from Remus.

The Doctor carefully stepped around Remus's long limbs and sat in front of him.

"Could I use the TARDIS and stop them from dying? I could warn them. I could tell them everything. Save them."

"Remus—"

"And don't tell me it's a bad idea. It means a child gets his parents back. It means three good people lived who would've died. And I … I wouldn't be alone any more." The Doctor watched as Remus swallowed back his tears. "They are so wonderful. _Were_ so wonderful. And to think … to think I could save them. I can't believe I only just thought of it. Can we—"

"No." And his voice was harsh.

Remus's eyes were dark with pain. "Why not?" His voice was wrecked, throat choked with sobs.

The Doctor paused. "We can't just—"

"Yes, we can! You've told me about what you do. You save people! In the past! Surely that affects everything!"

Looking at the man now, the Doctor can see what drove him to the edge of that bridge. The loss of his friends left Remus almost empty. Empty and alone.

And those golden eyes, for the first time, were rich and full of hope.

It hurt, that he knew he had to crush that. It hurt, that Remus's one hope was a fruitless one. The Doctor had always been drawn to broken people.

"I used to travel with this girl," he said, gently (as if that would soften the blow). "She said she wanted to see her father again. And then we went back. She saved his life, and it ruined everything. The father had to die in order to fix time itself."

"Fuck time itself. I don't … I think I would rather die than live in a world without them." Remus gave a bitter laugh. "Look, if you can't help me, drop me off back at that bridge and I'll finish what I started."

Silence for a moment.

"I can help you, Remus. Just not like this."

And then the TARDIS started to pulse impatiently around them. The Doctor stared at the other man, whose tears were now running freely down his cheeks. Remus stood, hands shaking, jaw clenched.

"No. If you can't do this for me, you're not helping at all."

.

The Doctor made it up to him (tried, really tried) by taking him to watch a star be born. He flew the TARDIS through the Medusa Cascade (one of his favourites, always had been), touched down on beautiful uninhabited planets, stopped a Zygon invasion on a remote agricultural planet. Remus pretended their conversation hadn't happened at all, plastering a smile beneath those freckled cheeks and staying silent for their adventures.

And the Doctor hated it. He wanted Remus's clever comments back, his sarcasm and insight. He wanted Remus to be shocked, amazed, awed by the places the Doctor took him. He wanted Remus Lupin back, not this _pretender_.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, one day as they stood underneath a waterfall. They were on an Earth-like planet, and Remus seemed sadder than ever, staring up at the twin moons with something like nostalgia. Something like pain.

(And the Doctor hated that. Oh, how he wanted to smooth the lines from Remus's brow.)

Water thundered all around them, spraying lightly against their trouser legs. The Doctor was just staring at Remus, as Remus stared up at the moons. And he said, "I'm sorry."

Remus turned slowly to look at him. "What for?"

"I can't save your friends. And I wish I could."

He was barely whispering above the roar of the waterfall, but Remus seemed to pick up every word. "'S all right," he said. "They're dead. And I should be coming to terms with that, or whatever. Not looking for impossible solutions."

The Doctor didn't know what to say to that. He just nodded.

But after a second thought, "I want you to be happy. I think you were, for a while. Before you started thinking about it."

"I was," Remus said. "Thank you. For that."

"Then how can I make you stop thinking about it again? Where can I take you?" The Doctor frowned; Remus was giving him a strange look, a calculated stare that he'd never seen on his face. He lowered his voice. "Tell me, Remus."

The sunlight—dim, on this planet, and soft—caught Remus's eyes until they turned the colour of honey. "You don't have to take me anywhere," he said, and leaned forwards, and kissed the Doctor.

It was over in an instant, over before the Doctor could even think about how to react.

Remus was just looking at him, and he still seemed sad, but he smiled. "Sorry," he said. "I had to."

"It's … well." He cleared his throat, lifting a hand to feel his lips. (He could still feel Remus's mouth against them, feather-light.) "I don't know if I … I just lost someone, you know. Recently. And I don't think I can … you know."

Remus seemed to find his confidence in the kiss, rather than lose it. "Yeah, I know. And I don't expect anything to come of this. I just wanted to know what it was like."

"Oh," the Doctor said, not quite understanding. "All right."

"I just thought … well, I thought it would be less awkward. If I was hiding that. I don't want to do anything either. Not if you don't."

Silence for a moment. The water against rocks, and light through Remus's hair, and the distant squabbling noises of the local animals.

"Who did you lose?" Remus asked gently.

The Doctor looked down. "Her name was Rose," he said, before realising that he had barely thought of her at all, recently. He felt a pang of guilt.

And Remus didn't say 'I'm sorry,' or any other kind (empty) thing that people tended to say; he just looked at the Doctor, and understood. And the Doctor was thankful for that.

The water roared and the soft light faded and the two men stood across from each other, having shared a name and a kiss. They weren't in love, and they weren't lovers, and they would never kiss again. They were just two men, alone together on a distant Earth-like planet. And that was all right.

.

When they got back to the TARDIS, exhausted from doing nothing at all, Remus gave the Doctor a smile before heading off to find somewhere to sleep. Whatever tension between them had been broken, and the stars were ready for them once more.

(Maybe he'd take Remus back to the Medusa Cascade; they hadn't seen it properly last time.)

.

"Where do you want to go?" he asked, leaping up to the controls, hands hovering, ready to take them anywhere (everywhere).

"I didn't really see the Medusa Cascade properly," Remus said. "Was busy thinking."

The Doctor made a face. "The Medusa Cascade is _boring_ ," he said. Because really, he was the Time Lord here—shouldn't he be the one to direct the TARDIS? (Or maybe he's become a control freak since the last time he let a companion choose where they wanted to go.)

(It had been Rose, he thought belatedly. She'd wanted to go to a garden ( _"Any garden,"_ she'd said, _"as long as it's gorgeous."_

" _You're gorgeous,"_ he'd wanted to say. But he hadn't.)

And he pressed whatever buttons he could reach, letting the TARDIS take them anywhere. (Anywhere but a garden.)

.

They sat on the lip of the TARDIS again, staring out into space as they had done in their first few days together.

"Y'know, you have … you had a _her_ —Rose—well … I've got a _him,_ I s'pose."

The Doctor looked towards Remus, who was looking down at his feet as they dangled above the stars. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. And he's gone, too. Gone in the way that matters, at least."

The Doctor tried to find something to say but settled with closing his mouth firmly and staring back out towards the stars.

After a moment of silence, Remus snorted a laugh. "Aren't we ridiculous? Two lonely broken men trying to lose ourselves out here."

The Doctor frowned. "That's … that's not why I do this." He thought of the people he'd saved, the planets he'd explored. Then he thought of the people he'd killed, and the planets he'd left behind.

"Is it not?"

The Doctor spent a moment just looking at the hard angles of Remus's face, of the scars bisecting his freckles and the curls of hair brushing the tops of his ears. Suddenly, he barked a laugh, cutting the sound off as soon as it came. "Remus Lupin, you are … you are _so good_. You've told me something even I didn't know."

Remus snorted, suddenly grinning. "Oh, shut it. As if you know everything."

The Doctor laughed again and didn't stop this time. "You'd be surprised."

"Oh, really?"

"I suppose it is a little ridiculous, isn't it? Running away like this."

It wasn't funny. It wasn't funny at all, but the two of them laughed bitterly into the stars and didn't stop for a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I really wanted it to be slash. But Remus still loves Sirius, really, and the Doctor isn't one to fall in love easily, especially so soon after Rose. So there's no real slash here. But there could've been. Oh well. Idk what this is. I like it anyway.


	3. Secrets, Unravelled

The first mistake:

He took Remus to Earth.

They’d been travelling for months—long enough that he’d forgotten what Remus had said about returning to Earth. Or overlooked it, or something. But they landed, and he leapt out, and said, “Here we are!” without even a thought about how this could be a bad idea.

It didn’t look so much like Earth, so Remus didn’t say a thing. 

(At first, anyway.)

They wandered for a bit, chatting and grinning and laughing and commenting on the birds and trees and the distant lights of a glimmering city of glass and marble.

“Where are we, then?” Remus asked at last.

“Earth,” the Doctor said.

And the light fell from Remus’s eyes, and the smile fell into a tight-lipped grimace. “I said I didn’t want to go home.”

The Doctor frowned. “This isn’t your home. I wouldn’t take you back to the 80s.” And then, “Well, this is the 80s, actually. The 4180s. But—”

“I don’t care what year it is. I—” His gaze was searching the sky. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“Have you … have you got a calendar or something?” He was frowning, eyes wide, one shaking hand raised to itch anxiously at his neck.

The Doctor squinted up at the sky for himself, seeing nothing but the early-rising moon and the setting sun. “What? What is it, Remus, just tell me.”

“Shut up! Please, just … give me a calendar.”

He fumbled in his pockets for a moment before drawing out a couple of calendar books, passing one to Remus which covered this year. 

“What’s the date? It needs to be exact.”

The Doctor gave it to him. He watched the other man closely.

“Fuck,” Remus said again. But his throat was ragged this time, like he was about to scream. Like a roar or a sob could tear out of his chest at any moment.

“What is it?”

“You need to leave. Just … go back to the TARDIS. Don’t come out until tomorrow morning.” Another glance up at the moon—round as a British five pence coin in the early 2000s.

“Please, Remus! What’s wrong? I can help—”

“No! No, you can’t. I’m…” he seemed to deliberate for a moment before confessing, “I’m a werewolf, Doctor. And you’ve taken me to a bloody full moon. So leave before you make this any worse.”

He gaped. “Remus—”

“If you stay, I’ll kill you. I’m sorry. I can’t—” He closed his eyes, sinking to the ground in a fluid movement and sitting on his haunches on the hard-packed ground. “Please, just leave.” He had his head in hands, lips pursed.

“Remus…”

“The sun’s setting already. As long as there aren’t people around, it’ll be fine. Find me in the morning, all right?”

There weren’t people around. The city was too far off, even for a bloodthirsty wolf.

“See you in the morning,” the Doctor said softly, unable to cover the shake in his voice. He turned, and walked back towards the TARDIS.

.

The Doctor couldn’t remember being so scared as he was that night. He could try and skip to the morning—he had a time machine, after all—but he’d made mistakes trying that too many times. He wanted to get this right.

So he waited. For all his years travelling through time, he’d never gotten a proper grasp on the details of it. Hours and minutes had once seemed so insignificant to him, but these particular ones stretched further than he ever could’ve imagined.

But, eventually, the sun rose. He wasn’t sure on the specifics, with the sun and the moon. The moon had already been in the sky when he’d walked with Remus, but there’d been no transformation until sunset. So as the sun rose, bleeding into the sky, he leapt out of the TARDIS and raced towards where he’d last seen Remus. 

There was no-one there. He stared dumbly at the bloodstains in the grass.

He stood in the middle of the little meadow, eyes running in every direction, towards the treeline and over the hills. The morning light cast everything in red.

To have lost Remus now…

Where could he look? The Doctor ran through the possibilities: the woods; down by the river they’d walked by earlier; North and East and South and West; the far off, glimmering city; _anywhere._

He couldn’t bear to have lost another companion. It hadn’t been nearly long enough since Rose, and this bared all the same pain he’d gone through back then. This was just as sudden, just as shocking, just as—

And then from behind him: “Did you bring clothes?”

He spun around. Remus was shaking, blood matted in his hair and in various places where he’d been wounded. Mud caked his skin.

The Doctor struggled for words. Those few moments, before Remus had emerged, had knocked the breath from him, and now that Remus was here—safe, thank the stars—he wasn’t sure what to think. He was still reeling from fear.

“I’m fine,” Remus whispered, as if he could read minds.

“I … good. Should we … we should get back. To the TARDIS. There are clothes there. And medical supplies.”

“Yeah.”

Remus leant against the Doctor for the walk back, and the weight against his side was so reassuring: he was _fine._

It was the suddenness of it all that had shocked him. They were walking, happy, and then Remus was a werewolf and the Doctor ran to the TARDIS and then was Remus gone? Was he safe? And he was and it was fine it was fine. Remus’s blood was on the Doctor’s sleeve. It shouldn’t have been a good thing, but it was; at least Remus was _here._

Sure enough, they got back to the TARDIS, and Remus washed himself of blood and dirt and got dressed. The Doctor spent that time leaning against the console and breathing. Just breathing.

“I really am fine, you know,” Remus said again, his voice less hoarse now. “This happens—happened—every month. When I’m on Earth, anyway.”

“It shouldn’t have to,” the Doctor said.

They were quiet, for a moment, but it was a comfortable sort of silence. The Doctor felt as though he could see Remus now—his vision was no longer clouded by secrets and questions. And underneath it all, Remus was unbelievably human.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Remus looked down at his feet. “People…” he sighed. “People can be absolute shit.”

The Doctor let him continue.

“Even as a kid, I couldn’t tell people. In my world, it wasn’t okay—at all—to be a werewolf. And I guess I thought … you’re not one of us. You’re not from my world. But I wanted to be judged for _me,_ not for my condition. And obviously, you’re okay with it. But what if you weren’t? What if you were like every other fucking bigot? You could open the doors of the TARDIS and push me into the vacuum of space. You could leave me on some cannibal planet, or something. I don’t know. I was scared. And maybe it was irrational, but I’m not … I can’t afford to change. Not when everyone at home will still be judging when I go back.”

The Doctor picked apart his words, pushing aside his questions and settling with: “When.”

“What?”

“You said _when_ you go back. Do you want to?”

Remus met his eyes. “I don’t know. I’ll have to, eventually. There are people I need to look after, and people who’ll miss me. But I do like it up here. And maybe the only reason I’m here is to escape what’s waiting or to get away from the transformations, or whatever, and you can have a go at me for that, but … isn’t that why you’re here? What’s wrong with running away, for a bit?”

“Nothing,” the Doctor said. “Nothing at all.” He thought of Gallifrey, a place he’d once been so sure he would return to. And now he couldn’t; not ever. It pained him to say it, but he had to warn Remus: “Just, if you’re going to return … don’t leave it too late.”

.

Things returned to the way they were before. The Doctor avoided Earth and the surrounding area like the plague, all too aware of Remus’s condition. He apologised time and time again for that one trip.

The blue rock from the purple planet (The Doctor still couldn’t figure out what it was, to his frustration.) sat on the edge of the console, on its own pedestal, as if it was some precious museum piece. It witnessed every one of their adventures.

They saved a small civilisation of creatures on a bright, hot planet.

They flew around a dying star.

They attended a political convention—one that was entirely silent, with no languages in use at all, only an odd form of charades.

The Doctor learned—slowly—bits about magic and the magical world. Remus learned about the stars, and spaceships, and time travel.

And at one point, after they’d spent months jumping in time and space, it ended.


	4. The Path Forks

Remus, in his years between the Doctor and his return to Hogwarts, drifted.

He’d been thinking about Harry more and more as he stayed on the TARDIS. Despite the elation he felt, jumping through space and time in a wheezing machine, with the moon too far away to affect him, guilt had tied weights to his ankles and was dragging him slowly back to Earth. Guilt’s name was Harry Potter. 

What sort of best friend was he, if he leapt off to another planet without hesitation, leaving Harry alone with Lily’s family? What sort of godfather? (He liked to think of himself as godfather, privately. With the original holder of the position locked in the darkest cell in Azkaban, he decided the position might as well fall to him. Not that he’d ever tell anyone. Not that he’d ever say it out loud.)

So, with thoughts of James and Lily and Harry and Peter (and not Sirius, not anymore), he told the Doctor it was time.

The Doctor had stared at him in those last moments, eyes wide and jaw clenched. As though he was in pain. As though he was upset Remus was leaving. And then: “Where I found you?”

“No,” Remus replied quickly. He didn’t want to see that bridge again (slightly worried about what he could do, if in the right state of mind). He didn’t want to see 1981 again. “A year later, or something. And in Wales. I need to see my dad.”

Outside the TARDIS, it had been raining. Remus had stepped out, into the rain, and looked back once, to see the Doctor leaning against the doorframe as if he’d fall without its support.

“I’m sorry,” Remus said. The sound was nearly lost in the downpour. “I have to.”

“I know.”

And then he turned, boots squelching in the mud, and kept his head firmly turned away from the TARDIS and the Doctor. His dad’s house was in the distance, yellow light glowing from a window. The TARDIS didn’t start wheezing until it was nearly out of earshot.

.

He spent two weeks with his dad.

Dad was Welsh and forgetful and very sad. He’d always been bumbling, but when Remus’s mum had died, he’d started staring into space for too long. He didn’t talk so much afterwards.

When he first saw Remus at the door, he stared in shock for a moment before engulfing him in a hug, tears dropping from eye to chin. Remus let his heart shrivel further with guilt before hugging back, revelling in the comfort he could still find in his father’s arms. Standing in the cottage doorway, rain hammering behind him, he felt like a child again, coming home after his first term at Hogwarts.

“I’m sorry, Dad.” He apologised for leaving, and for coming back, and for leaving everyone for a year. He apologised for what he nearly did on that bridge.

Dad just cried.

Remus sat on the sofa for two weeks. He slept and ate and stared into the sky every night, wondering which star the TARDIS was orbiting around. Wondering what planets the Doctor was saving. It was clear Dad knew something was wrong, but he didn’t say anything to Remus. He probably blamed it on the deaths of Remus’s three best friends. Maybe he blamed it on Sirius. It was so easy to blame everything on Sirius nowadays.

Remus gathered the news from the past year, and wrote a letter to Dumbledore, and checked up on Harry exactly once, on a chilly Wednesday morning. Little Whinging was blustery, and he didn’t see the two-year-old, but he did see his aunt and uncle and cousin. He felt the weight of the guilt again—could he have taken Harry from these people, if he’d pulled himself together and stayed?

He cursed Dumbledore. He cursed the Doctor. He cursed Sirius Black. He missed them all.

Dumbledore’s reply, when it came, was as follows:

_Dear Mr Lupin,_

_I cannot express how relieved I am to learn of your good health. I confess I thought I would never hear from you again._

_As for news, as you requested: the Order is disbanded, now that the threat is eliminated. The last of Lord Voldemort’s followers have been captured or have slipped back into the shadows. Certain individuals have negotiated for freedom by exchanging names and claiming to have been under the influence of the Imperius Curse. I will not express my opinion on these claims, but I have no doubt you will share my beliefs._

_Harry, as I’m sure you know, lives with his aunt and uncle in Surrey. I would like to request you don’t interfere, Remus. You must understand that the safest thing for the child is to leave him firmly in the Muggle world until he is old enough to be under Hogwarts protection. There is no-one in our world I could firmly trust to care for him. I have a reliable contact—someone both you and I know—who has been watching Harry in the neighbourhood. I trust her to ensure his comfort, and I assure you, you will be the first to know if his safety is compromised._

_Perhaps we should meet; I would like to hear what course your life has taken in the past year. It must have been somewhere particularly peculiar, as even my best owl couldn’t find you to deliver a letter six months ago._

_Your friend,_

_Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore._

He didn’t want to meet Dumbledore. After reading the letter twice, he threw the parchment into the bin. 

Remus ached to see Sirius again. If he did, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. The thought of his fist meeting Sirius’s face was the most satisfying thought he’d had in a while. But what if Sirius began to talk? Would Remus be able to block it out, or would he end up where he always did, with Sirius’s words tying him in knots until he bent to that unyielding will?

He wanted to see the Doctor again. Because they’d been friends. The Doctor had _understood,_ and then he’d washed the memories away with promises of new places and sights, colour like never before … Remus hated himself for resenting Earth.

The first full moon back was as painful as he’d expected. Unused to the contortions which used to wrack him monthly, when he woke his mind was in the darkest state it had inhabited for a while, and he spent the next week moping and hating himself and hating Earth and the moon and Sirius and the Doctor and Dad and Wales and Dumbledore.

He wanted his head to just … stop. It was brimming with emotion and thought and he wished it would slow down. 

As cosy as it was, with the little fire and the kitchen and the leaky thatch, Dad’s cottage became claustrophobic after a while. 

So he travelled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, sorry, I couldn't think of any actual adventures for them to have.
> 
> Please let me know what you think!


	5. Remus, Alone

Remus flew around Earth for years, drifting from continent to continent, and taking long breaks in a cheap cottage in Yorkshire he’d bought with James’s money from the will, before setting off again, by plane or Portkey or even broom, once, to somewhere new. Somewhere exotic. 

Once he knew what to look for, he found traces of the Doctor everywhere.

He stopped off to see some ancient carvings in a Tunisian cave. Amongst the swirls and outlines of animals, there was the striking shape of a box, with lines extending from the point at the top like rays of light. 

In the background of a news report on the telly, he could see a flash of wild brown hair and a wide grin running towards who-knows-where. Remus only felt a hint of jealousy as he saw the young woman sprinting beside him. (Except maybe this wasn’t a replacement for him. Maybe he was a replacement for her, or she a replacement for his replacement, or he for hers … it took him a while to consider the time travel aspect of it all, and once it was done he was sufficiently confused enough that the jealousy had faded. All he could think was: maybe that Doctor on the screen hadn’t met Remus yet. Maybe that Doctor was happy. Somehow, in a roundabout way, the thought cheered him up.)

He looked up to the stars one night and saw a spark of blue. It was unlikely, but he liked to think he’d caught a glimpse of the TARDIS in orbit.

And beyond all of that, when he’d reached twenty-six and declared himself no longer young, he found Rose.

.

He couldn’t resist. He was in one of those moods.

His fingers were itching, mind rolling in circles around subjects until all he could think about was the Doctor. Remus sighed; he was too old for this. He was too old to be dreaming his life away (what life? something inside scoffed). But he couldn’t stop.

It grew to the point that he wished the Doctor would be in some records, or something—mostly just for _proof_ , proof that Remus hadn’t gone mad in those years after James, Lily and Peter’s deaths. And then, after a while wallowing, he thought—

“Shit.” Because though the Doctor himself might not be easy to track, he’d always travelled with humans. And humans—Remus himself included—live lives on paper. He only needed a name: Rose Tyler.

Guilt gnawed at his chest, but he pushed past it and fished out a phone book. 

At this point, he was renting a crappy London apartment. He had a job down the road at a grocer’s, which earned him barely anything, but was enough (mostly) to keep him occupied. And, in this case, it meant he had a London phone book. 

Tyler, Tyler, Tyler. Was this the right time, even? He knew she was a Londoner, but it wasn’t always a question of where, but _when_. He wished he could skip down to the Ministry and access the files there (which were meticulously nosy and startlingly complete), but he hated the stares he received amongst wizards once they realised what he was.

There were fourteen Tylers on the list. Without hesitation, he picked the first one and dialled.

“Hello?” a man’s voice replied. 

“Hi,” he said. “This isn’t Rose Tyler’s number is it?”

“Wrong number, mate.” And the man hanged up.

The next turned out similar results. 

The third number contained a rather more violent reaction from a woman who was quite clearly pissed out of her mind.

The fourth-through-ninth yielded nothing.

“Hello, this is Jackie,” answered the fifth person.

“Hi,” Remus replied. “You wouldn’t happen to know Rose Tyler, would you?”

A pause, and then, “I don’t know how you know my baby’s name, but it’s just not right to go ‘round like that. She’s only five months and you’ve already got her whole bloody name and everything! Where’s my privacy? You know, a friend of mine told me someone phoned her like this, knowing her name and everything, and that ended in—”

“Sorry,” Remus spluttered, “Wrong number.” 

But it wasn’t, of course. He sat next to the phone for a minute, breathing heavily. Rose Tyler. She was five months old. Shit. His chest felt tight.

Remus threw the phone book into the back of his cupboard and drank six cups of tea before he let himself leave the house. He asked his boss at the greengrocer’s if he could pick up another shift this afternoon, and then filled his day with vegetables rather than confront the fruitlessness of his only tie to the Doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, that was a short one. 
> 
> I promise we'll be seeing some familiar faces soon...

**Author's Note:**

> Please, if you’re considering suicide, call a helpline or call a friend. 
> 
> On a lighter note, I'd love to know what you think of this start. I promise it gets happier from here!


End file.
